the entire sneak/hide system just needs a complete overhaul if it's going to be realistic. Right now hiding is a binary on/off switch where you're either completely invisible to everyone, or you are visible from three rooms out in dense forests with a bright purple neon sign above your head because you stepped too close to a rabbit. Wearing metal equipment isn't about to prevent a soldier from hiding and moving about when he's a good distance away from his target, the sounds of the metal wouldn't be within earshot, and metal can easily be dulled or left unpolished, or fabric worn overtop to prevent catching light and they could simply use the terrain to obstruct line of sight to them. However in the current system it's just as easy to sneak around when you're 1 room away from your target as you are 3 rooms away, and that's the range when a full suit of chainmail is going to start giving away your position pretty quickly thanks to the rustling of chains.

A really bad sword with a short blade lies here. look sword This sword hardly even a sword. It's kind of really just a piece of metal bent like a sword. Its blade is rather short. Kind of pathetic, really.

radioactivejesus wrote: Wearing metal equipment isn't about to prevent a soldier from hiding and moving about when he's a good distance away from his target, the sounds of the metal wouldn't be within earshot, and metal can easily be dulled or left unpolished, or fabric worn overtop to prevent catching light and they could simply use the terrain to obstruct line of sight to them.

If the sneak/hide system is going to be re-balanced, metal armor needs to prevent sneaking/hiding at any real level for balance sake.

you are visible from three rooms out in dense forests with a bright purple neon sign above your head because you stepped too close to a rabbit.

You only get seen if people look, conveniently. And you can be seen if people are looking, even when you're hidden. It's not so binary as you might think. Watch reveals people sneaking into rooms you're watching, and of course you're not -seen- even by players, unless they're watching or they look. And players are pretty unobservant.

radioactivejesus wrote: Wearing metal equipment isn't about to prevent a soldier from hiding and moving about when he's a good distance away from his target, the sounds of the metal wouldn't be within earshot, and metal can easily be dulled or left unpolished, or fabric worn overtop to prevent catching light and they could simply use the terrain to obstruct line of sight to them.

If the sneak/hide system is going to be re-balanced, metal armor needs to prevent sneaking/hiding at any real level for balance sake.

as long as it's not some goofy 'wearing any metal=being unable to sneak at all' deal, then I would be in favour of metal armour greatly reducing your chances of stealth. Right now metal lowers the hide and sneak skills an appropriate level, but the problem with the code is that those skills are only ever going to be tested against if you try to ambush someone or sneak into a room with another PC or NPC occupying it, which leads to those skill debuffs not really being as huge of a problem as they should. And Tehkory, I have never once experienced someone getting revealed for sneaking into a room that is being watched, I'm pretty sure that isn't part of the code. If it's not though, I can see that being the perfect solution to metal armour and stealth.

Make it so that whenever you scan into a room, you roll your intelligence vs. the hide skill of any occupants. The hiders get a good-sized bonus depending on how many rooms away they are. Watching a direction could do a similar thing, but in a passive way. Rolling vs. the hiders sneak skill if the hiders try to move into a room that's being watched. Because chainmail lowers hide and sneak by such a large amount, any scanning done has a good chance of revealing the person, and if there is a decent sized group of low hide skilled characters in metal armour, there would be a near 100% chance of detecting a few of them with a scan. If they did this, small groups would be less noticable than big groups, and the heavier the armour the party members are wearing, the worse off they would be, rather than just disabling hide with the first piece of metal armour you put on

A really bad sword with a short blade lies here. look sword This sword hardly even a sword. It's kind of really just a piece of metal bent like a sword. Its blade is rather short. Kind of pathetic, really.

To be fair, though...maybe if scanning was given a delay, again, that might work. But it'd still be abusable as snarfagle, and would require scanning to echo to others...which would get old as hell awful fast. And it'd probably mean scanning should break hide, at that point, given it's the equivalent of long-distance searching.

And Tehkory, I have never once experienced someone getting revealed for sneaking into a room that is being watched, I'm pretty sure that isn't part of the code.

I don't know the requirements for it, only that it(at least) works for people arriving to rooms directly adjacent to you. Any other requirements for that I'm not sure. I'd log search for it, but I'm lazy and bad. It happens.ETA:At least, it works some of the time, or once did. I don't intend to test it, though I might go log-searching if nobody can get it to work.ETA 2.0:To the north, you see a guy arrive stealthily from the south.

To be fair, though...maybe if scanning was given a delay, again, that might work. But it'd still be abusable as snarfagle, and would require scanning to echo to others...which would get old as hell awful fast. And it'd probably mean scanning should break hide, at that point, given it's the equivalent of long-distance searching.

yea. Scan would definitely need to have a cooldown. I'll test things a bit and see how watching a direction works with sneaking people, and if it's easier to spot guys with chainmail and next to 0 sneak skill than it is actual scouts. Curious to learn about this piece of code I've never noticed before

A really bad sword with a short blade lies here. look sword This sword hardly even a sword. It's kind of really just a piece of metal bent like a sword. Its blade is rather short. Kind of pathetic, really.

I think it's good to think about ideal solutions and then also to think about the best, quickest, and most practical solution for the interim. As much as it would be desirable for hiding to be completely redone (and it would be) I've seen no indications that it's on the radar and I imagine it's probably a big project.

I imagine that for the forseeable future hiding is going to remain the binary on/off that it currently is. If that's the case is it difficult to make these extra proposed rolls vs the hide skill with the possibility of revealing the person or is it just easier to have certain armors disable the command? With the limited amount of manpower here it always seems that work vs. reward has to be factored in, and I would rather have a partial, somewhat less than ideal solution that will actually be implemented than a perfect solution that takes way too long and never gets done.

Brian wrote:I think it's good to think about ideal solutions and then also to think about the best, quickest, and most practical solution for the interim. As much as it would be desirable for hiding to be completely redone (and it would be) I've seen no indications that it's on the radar and I imagine it's probably a big project.

I imagine that for the forseeable future hiding is going to remain the binary on/off that it currently is. If that's the case is it difficult to make these extra proposed rolls vs the hide skill with the possibility of revealing the person or is it just easier to have certain armors disable the command? With the limited amount of manpower here it always seems that work vs. reward has to be factored in, and I would rather have a partial, somewhat less than ideal solution that will actually be implemented than a perfect solution that takes way too long and never gets done.

in the current situation where oiled leather is already greatly superior to chainmail, this would just result in everyone and their warg wearing oiled leather and chainmail cluttering the newbie gear bins in every clanhall.As of right now, the main difference between the two armours is Chainmail=slightly less protective overall in melee by one point. Getting ambush attack bonuses is nearly impossible. Sneaking into a room where people already are is nearly impossible.Oiled leather=You are more vulnerable to arrows than someone in chainmail is, but then you can just stay hidden and nobody will shoot you in the first place. Also it's 3 times as fast to make for some reason, and far less resource intensive. The fact that people in chainmail can sneak around is hardly something worth crying over when they are less protected and less stealthy than someone in leather.So trying to introduce this proposed quick-fix will actually require quite a few things to be done prior to it going in, if any sort of balance is to be kept with armours.

A really bad sword with a short blade lies here. look sword This sword hardly even a sword. It's kind of really just a piece of metal bent like a sword. Its blade is rather short. Kind of pathetic, really.

At this moment, yes, but I thought I saw Icarus post that the next level of metal armor will be rolling out soon? If/when it does then leather, with the proper strength, will become essentially obsolete so these changes would make sense unless it's intended that everyone is wearing the same armor as soon as they get a chance to, and that the same armor is the best armor for all activities.

I still don't understand why mail protects less or the same as leather. It takes 2 minutes to change and I've yet to hear a single argument as to why this is the case.

I'm also not sure as to why just giving severe penalties to hide/sneak isn't enough? I mean search and scan are all int checks, and it must be checking against something, right? Or how does it work exactly?

Jarlhen wrote:I still don't understand why mail protects less or the same as leather. It takes 2 minutes to change and I've yet to hear a single argument as to why this is the case.

I'm also not sure as to why just giving severe penalties to hide/sneak isn't enough? I mean search and scan are all int checks, and it must be checking against something, right? Or how does it work exactly?

Because it's literally a lesser quality item. It's cheap, trashy mail that's not made as well. It's crap and poorly-made.

There are five qualities of weapons/armor in-game. Trash, poor, ordinary, good, and superior. Metal's either poor or trash. Oiled is ordinary. Objects of the same quality protect the same, and the difference is in not armor-class but instead armor-type.

If you spar twice in bog-iron maille it gets worn. AT least two moderates from sparring damage. Its pathetic armor and its really weak defensively. I think regular leathers beat it. Oiled leathers just beat it better.

Jarlhen wrote:I still don't understand why mail protects less or the same as leather. It takes 2 minutes to change and I've yet to hear a single argument as to why this is the case.

I'm also not sure as to why just giving severe penalties to hide/sneak isn't enough? I mean search and scan are all int checks, and it must be checking against something, right? Or how does it work exactly?

Because it's literally a lesser quality item. It's cheap, trashy mail that's not made as well. It's crap and poorly-made.

There are five qualities of weapons/armor in-game. Trash, poor, ordinary, good, and superior. Metal's either poor or trash. Oiled is ordinary. Objects of the same quality protect the same, and the difference is in not armor-class but instead armor-type.

But mail has certain physical properties. Unless it's made from lead, it simply can't be worse than leather protections wise.

I'm all for it breaking in two hits, that's fine. That's not what I'm talking about. Iron mail based even on crappy iron is going to defend better than leather. Even if it's only for two hits. And higher up in this thread it's said that oil protects better against all but arrows. This is what I'm talking about.

Jarlhen wrote:I'm also not sure as to why just giving severe penalties to hide/sneak isn't enough? I mean search and scan are all int checks, and it must be checking against something, right? Or how does it work exactly?

The way that hide works is you're either fully hidden or you're fully not hidden to anything. That means that if you're in a room with no ungrouped PCs and no NPCs you become fully, 100% hidden. Nobody is going to see you if they scan into your room, nobody is going to see you if they walk into the room that you're in. The only thing that breaks this 100% guaranteed hiding is if you attempt to sneak into/out of a room that has a PC or an NPC in it or if you try to take an action in the room that has a PC or an NPC in it.

Functionally, what this means is that as long as you're under the encumbrance limit that allows you to hide or not, you can wear anything that you want and you will be registered as 100% fully hidden. It also means that as long as you scan before entering a room to make sure there are no PCs or NPCs in the next room that would check against your hide skill, you can cross the entire map and remain 100% hidden no matter what you're wearing. Even if you're in a room and a PC or NPC walks in you can still remain 100% hidden unless you take an action with them in the room.

Due to this, hiding makes you invisible unless you challenge your skill against something in the room. If you're good with scanning and moving you can make it so that you never challenge the skill and never have your hiden state broken.

Jarlhen wrote:I'm also not sure as to why just giving severe penalties to hide/sneak isn't enough? I mean search and scan are all int checks, and it must be checking against something, right? Or how does it work exactly?

The way that hide works is you're either fully hidden or you're fully not hidden to anything. That means that if you're in a room with no ungrouped PCs and no NPCs you become fully, 100% hidden. Nobody is going to see you if they scan into your room, nobody is going to see you if they walk into the room that you're in. The only thing that breaks this 100% guaranteed hiding is if you attempt to sneak into/out of a room that has a PC or an NPC in it or if you try to take an action in the room that has a PC or an NPC in it.

Functionally, what this means is that as long as you're under the encumbrance limit that allows you to hide or not, you can wear anything that you want and you will be registered as 100% fully hidden. It also means that as long as you scan before entering a room to make sure there are no PCs or NPCs in the next room that would check against your hide skill, you can cross the entire map and remain 100% hidden no matter what you're wearing. Even if you're in a room and a PC or NPC walks in you can still remain 100% hidden unless you take an action with them in the room.

Due to this, hiding makes you invisible unless you challenge your skill against something in the room. If you're good with scanning and moving you can make it so that you never challenge the skill and never have your hiden state broken.

But if you scan and there's a hidden person in that room, is there not an int check against their hide? Or if you search?

Jarlhen wrote:I'm also not sure as to why just giving severe penalties to hide/sneak isn't enough? I mean search and scan are all int checks, and it must be checking against something, right? Or how does it work exactly?

The way that hide works is you're either fully hidden or you're fully not hidden to anything. That means that if you're in a room with no ungrouped PCs and no NPCs you become fully, 100% hidden. Nobody is going to see you if they scan into your room, nobody is going to see you if they walk into the room that you're in. The only thing that breaks this 100% guaranteed hiding is if you attempt to sneak into/out of a room that has a PC or an NPC in it or if you try to take an action in the room that has a PC or an NPC in it.

Functionally, what this means is that as long as you're under the encumbrance limit that allows you to hide or not, you can wear anything that you want and you will be registered as 100% fully hidden. It also means that as long as you scan before entering a room to make sure there are no PCs or NPCs in the next room that would check against your hide skill, you can cross the entire map and remain 100% hidden no matter what you're wearing. Even if you're in a room and a PC or NPC walks in you can still remain 100% hidden unless you take an action with them in the room.

Due to this, hiding makes you invisible unless you challenge your skill against something in the room. If you're good with scanning and moving you can make it so that you never challenge the skill and never have your hiden state broken.

But if you scan and there's a hidden person in that room, is there not an int check against their hide? Or if you search?

If you search, yes. If you scan, no. That's a suggestion someone made, but not something that exists.

The real fix to Brian's problem is having (some)mobs track again, perhaps the alpha wolves/wargs, and bears, and the huge male boars, and having all hostile mobs search every so often(much like how they'll refollow/regroup every so often).

It'd also be pretty nice if wolves/wargs grouped up together, but I'm not 100% sure that's canon.

ETA:Oh, and more hidden mobs might be nice. That balanced out early Atonement Beta.

Jarlhen wrote:I still don't understand why mail protects less or the same as leather.

It doesn't.

It does.

Compared to a rough pair of bog-iron chausses, a mottled-grey pair of oiled leather leggings: + weighs less + provides more overall protection + protects more against crushing + protects less against slashing + protects less against gunshots

Oiled leather is 1 point worse than chainmail against slashing, and 2 points better than chainmail against bludgeons. If you take all the effective AC levels vs each melee weapon type and do the math, oiled leather is superior to chainmail by 1 point. It also lets you pull off ambush attacks, which are brutal in pvp. Only reason to wear chainmail instead of oiled is if you don't have the hide/sneak skill, or know ahead of time you're going into a battle against a guy who only uses swords, and you aren't able to ambush him (pretty rare scenario). Or, and I think this is the main reason you see people wearing chainmail, their character concept revolves around them being some heavy-infantry grunt, and they think their pc looks cooler in chainmail

A really bad sword with a short blade lies here. look sword This sword hardly even a sword. It's kind of really just a piece of metal bent like a sword. Its blade is rather short. Kind of pathetic, really.

No wonder! Compare is an awfully confusing thing to base anything on. The maths above come from incorrect assumptions. Firstly, RJ assumes that "better" = +1 point and "worse" = -1 point. That is incorrect. Especially in this case.Secondly, compare doesn't compare (heh) AC and protection vs. damage type separately (even though it pretends to be that way). You don't really need to look at the 'overall' line at all.

Rough mail is better than oiled leather in all but one damage type, and even there it is not far behind. Trust me. However, as RJ correctly points out, once you take things like ambush or durability into account, the superiority of mail is questionable. Didn't I use exactly the same sentence earlier in this thread?

Last edited by Ceredir on Mon May 11, 2015 3:04 am, edited 1 time in total.

That said, things are far from ideal at the moment, and I am not saying all is good and fine. Just pointing out that there are some miscnceptions. We are looking at a potential rehaul of how we handle weapons and armor. Myself, Icarus and Ancalagon have spent last two weeks just gathering data and analyzing exactly where our problems lie, and how different models will pan out, taking into account all possible variables, including dwield, layering armor etc. We do not want to base any changes on "I think it should be this way", but rather "the numbers work in both realistic and playable manner if we do it this way". Bear with us. It is not as simple as it might look.

Edit: typos. Shouldn't write responses on my phone, hrmph.

Last edited by Ceredir on Mon May 11, 2015 3:26 am, edited 1 time in total.